Can social resilience inform SA/SIA for adaptive planning for climate change in vulnerable regions?

Abstract

Social resilience concepts are gaining momentum in environmental planning through an emerging understanding of the socio-ecological nature of biophysical systems. There is a disconnect, however, between these concepts and the sociological and psychological literature related to social resilience. Further still, both schools of thought are not well connected to the concepts of social assessment (SA) and social impact assessment (SIA) that are the more standard tools supporting planning and decision-making. This raises questions as to how emerging social resilience concepts can translate into improved SA/SIA practices to inform regional-scale adaptation. Through a review of the literature, this paper suggests that more cross-disciplinary integration is needed if social resilience concepts are to have a genuine impact in helping vulnerable regions tackle climate change.

Keywords:

• Social assessment
• social impact assessment
• climate change adaptation
• indicators of social resilience
• monitoring and evaluation

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Queensland Government through the Queensland Centre for Social Science Innovation (QCSSI) and the Northern Futures Collaborative Research Network (CRN). The authors would also specifically like to acknowledge the significant contributions to this work of Ruth Potts (Griffith University), Helen Boon (James Cook University), Bob Stevenson (James Cook University), David King (James Cook University), Margaret Gooch (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority), Hurriyet Babacan (James Cook University) and Bronwyn Voyce (Griffith University).